White Robed Monks of St. Benedict
Theology of Christ/Universal Consciousness
PDF: Theology of Christ/Universal Consciousness
Section Two: How Jesus Experienced His Dual Nature
Book 2. The Phenomenology of Divine–Human Awakening
Part 1. Jesus' Inner Experience (Speculative Phenomenology)
· Jesus likely experienced conscious intimacy with the Father (c.f. John 10:30).
· His subjective awareness likely did not oscillate between "me" and "God" as in dualistic consciousness.
· Rather, he operated from an abiding centerless center: pure awareness embodied in a specific historical, cultural, and neurobiological self. (c.f. the centerless center of NOW)
Part 2. How He Interfaced:
Like a transparent lens, Jesus' humanity refracted divine light without distortion.
· Emotionally: He felt anguish (Gethsemane), joy, compassion.
· Spiritually: He "emptied himself" (Phil. 2:7), modeling kenosis—self–emptying love.
· Cognitively: He perceived others not as objects, but as expressions of the same Source.
Jesus' mystical consciousness, as reflected in passages such as "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30), suggests a state of awareness no longer tethered to the oscillation between a separate "me" and a distant "God." Unlike the dualistic consciousness common to most human experience, where self and divine are perceived as two, Jesus appears to have abided in a centerless center—a field of pure awareness inseparable from divine presence, yet embodied within his historical, cultural, and neurobiological self.
This mode of being is phenomenologically akin to what contemplative traditions describe as the now–centered openness beyond self–referential grasping. From such a vantage, Jesus did not lose his humanity but became a transparent lens through which divine light refracted without distortion. His emotions were not abolished—anguish in Gethsemane, joy in communion, compassion toward the suffering—but they did not obscure awareness. Rather, they flowed as waves upon the sea of presence.
Theologically, this finds expression in kenosis (Phil. 2:7): the self–emptying of clinging, control, and egoic separateness. Psychologically, such kenosis resonates with ego–dissolution: identity is not erased, but liberated from contraction. Cognitively, Jesus perceived others not as external objects, but as living expressions of the same Source—sparks of the divine radiance.
Using a quantum metaphor, his consciousness did not collapse into the binary of subject and object but resonated with the nonlocal wholeness underlying multiplicity. Mystically, this yielded unitive awareness, where self, other, and God are facets of a single luminous reality.
Thus, Jesus embodied a paradox: fully human yet fully transparent to the divine. His life modeled how self–emptying love and pure awareness can dwell in time while revealing eternity—inviting others into the same luminous intimacy with the Source.
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